No Easy Hope - 01 (11 page)

On a bet, one of the team members tried using a civilian .22 caliber version of the MP5 sub-machinegun.  The .22 long rifle bullet is small and lightweight, and the operative brought two, five hundred round bricks of ammo with him on the mission. Everyone on the team, including the operative who brought it, was surprised at how effective the little bullets were at close range. The .22 rounds could kill the undead at ranges up to twenty yards, with most accurately placed rounds getting the job done on the first shot. The operative was able to single handedly wipe out a horde of nearly a hundred undead by picking his shots and staying on the move. After that mission, every operative carried a .22 pistol, a five hundred round brick of ammunition, and several spare magazines.

After numerous missions involving heavy casualties, Gabe’s employer finally agreed to outfit his team with suppressors for all of their firearms. The benefits of silenced weapons were immediately apparent on subsequent missions. Prior to the issuance of suppressed firearms, the strike teams suffered an average of two casualties per mission. With silenced firearms at their disposal, the strike team’s casualty rates dropped to nearly zero. Gabe’s insistence on purchasing silencers for my guns suddenly made sense.  He was worried that I would need a way to protect myself in the event of an outbreak of the Phage (as Gabe referred to it in the manual).

I finished reading and looked at the clock on the side table. It was only seven in the evening, but felt much later than that. I was exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to put a gun under my pillow and go to sleep. I went back into the bunker’s living room and double-checked the security system to make sure everything was online. Satisfied, I climbed into bed and quickly fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up around seven, and checked the laptop to make sure it was safe to go back in the house. Seeing that all was clear on the cameras, I went back in through the basement hatch, made a sandwich for breakfast, and sat down in front of the television to check on things in Georgia. Before turning on the TV, I had been hoping that the outbreak would be under control. Maybe the government got their shit together for once and put a stop to this tragedy before too many more people got hurt. What I saw when I turned on the news was more shocking and terrible than anything I could have imagined. The infection had completely overrun Atlanta and was spreading like wildfire south into Florida and north toward South Carolina. It followed the interstate highway routes, spreading to areas and towns adjacent. Footage from helicopters showed traffic jams that spread for dozens of miles in both directions of traffic. Hordes of undead moved amongst the stopped cars, attacking anyone they found.

The President declared southern Georgia a disaster area, and sent National Guard troops from all over the country to help. Unfortunately, because of the two wars still raging at the time, most of our troops were half way across the world in Iraq and Afghanistan. The President had not yet ordered troops to be withdrawn from the Middle East, but I had a feeling that might change if things got any worse.

I picked up my cell phone from its charger and called Gabe.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He said. He sounded groggy.

“Sorry to call you so early, but you need to see what’s on the news.” I said.

“Things any better than they were yesterday?”

“No, they’re not. It looks like you were right about this thing being out of control. It’s already spread to South Carolina, and will probably cross the Florida border by the end of the day.”

“Fucking shit.” He swore. “Those dumb bastards. How could they let this thing get loose?”

“I don’t know, but it’s headed our way. Have you given any thought to maybe contacting someone to let them know how to fight the infected?” I asked.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? I can’t get through to anyone in a position to do anything about it. It’s not like I have the President or the goddamn Pentagon on speed dial. I know Aegis has some friends that are pretty high up. Maybe they can get word to someone before it’s too late, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Speaking of, how are you doing down there? Everything okay so far?”

“Yeah, no problems yet. You manage to get any sleep last night?” I asked.

“I fell asleep at my desk around two in the morning and woke up about five minutes ago in a puddle of my own drool. My back is stiff as hell, and I got a four-alarm headache. Other than that, I’m just peachy.”

“If you get the chance, check out the news.  I’ll be watching it today, call me if you need anything or think of anything else I should know.”

“Just stay put for now. If things go south, hole up in your shelter until you’re down to a week of food, like I told you before. When you get to that point, make your way up here to Morganton. Things should have settled down a good bit by then, and you should be able to make it up here quick if you’re careful. Did you read that email I sent you?”

“Yeah, I did. That was some crazy stuff, man. Is all that shit really true?”

“Every word of it. It’s good that you’ve read it once, but I want you to read it again, and again, and after you do that, read it again. Memorize as much of it as you can, especially the parts about how to fight the undead. Check your weapons, put a few rounds through them with the silencers on to make sure everything is in good working order, and then load every spare magazine you have for them. Keep at least a side arm and a couple of spare mags on you at all times. Got it?”

“Got it.” I was silent for a moment before continuing.

“Hey…what if this really is the end of the world? I mean, what are we going to do if society actually collapses? I feel like I’m in a bad dream or something, I keep expecting to wake up. It’s like I have a big ball of ice in my stomach. I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid in my entire life.”

“I know what you mean.” Gabe said. “I’ve lived with the knowledge that the Phage exists for over six years now. The only advice I can give you is to stay strong. What we need to focus on is survival. There’s a storm coming our way, and we need to get ready for it. We’ll deal with what happens after if we live long enough.”

“Jesus…this is some craziness.” I said. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. I can’t think about it anymore right now. I need to do something, or I’m going to lose my fucking mind. I’m gonna go check my guns. Stay in touch, alright?”

“Will do. Later.” He hung up.

I went back to the bedroom on the living compartment side of the underground shelter, and unlocked a small safe in the floor of the closet. Inside the safe was a key ring with three keys on it. I took the keys to the supply unit and unlocked the three heavy steel doors to the armory. Inside the compartment marked WEAPONS were three sturdy metal shelves. The top shelf was flat, and held boxes of fragmentation and concussion grenades.  The second rack held several long guns including two H&K 416 assault rifles, an FN A3G sniper rifle, a Benelli M4 semiautomatic shotgun, and a Bushmaster M4A3 carbine. Below the rifle-rack was a small shelf that held an assortment of pistols. I took out a Kel-Tec PMR 30 pistol, and an HK416 carbine, my preferred primary and secondary weapon combination.

The Kel-Tec fires .22 magnum rounds, and the HK416 is a compact assault rifle that fires 5.56mm NATO. Gabriel recommended both weapons to me. The Kel-Tec magazine held thirty rounds, and when fired with a silencer made very little noise at all. I fitted the suppressor to the end of it, loaded a couple of spare magazines for it, and then went to work on the HK.I loaded three magazines for the carbine, and then grabbed a military issue load bearing harness to carry extra the ammo. I also took out a tactical sling for the rifle. I put the spare magazines on the harness, and after attaching a silencer to the HK rifle, I went topside to test it.

I picked up a few pinecones from the tree line behind the garage, and set them on an old wooden sawhorse from my storage shed. I counted off thirty steps backward from the sawhorse and thumbed off the safety. Normally I preferred reflex sights, but I figured I should practice with the iron sights to stay proficient with them. I lined up my first shot, and pulled the trigger. My aim was good, and the pinecone flipped away from the sawhorse. The suppressor fitted to the end of the barrel eliminated most of the shot’s noise. Anyone standing more than a few feet away would only hear the clang of chamber loading another round, and a muffled crack. I hit the next few targets in rapid succession, smiling a little as each one went spinning away on the first shot. I guess all that time at the shooting range did me some good after all. Satisfied with the carbine, I sat a few more pinecones atop the sawhorse and took a few shots with the pistol from closer range. The silencer made the report from the handgun nearly inaudible. I hit all but one of the little targets on the first shot, and got the one I missed with a follow up shot less than a second later. Good ol’ double tap. After testing my two favorite guns, I took them back to the bunker and did the same test with the other carbine, my .22 pistol, and the sniper rifle. They were the only other weapons for which I had silencers available. I didn’t get silencers for the shotgun, the Bushmaster, or my other pistols, figuring that if I ever actually fired them in anger, noise would probably be the least of my concerns.

Besides the Kel-Tec, I had a Sig Sauer .40 caliber automatic, a Sig mosquito .22, a Smith and Wesson .45ACP, and the Sig 9mm that I had brought with me from the house. I kept a minimum of 200 rounds for each weapon, and in the case of the sniper rifle, the carbines, and both of the .22 ammo types, I had much more. I had three thousand rounds of 5.56 cartridges, six hundred .308 rounds for the sniper rifle, five thousand rounds of .22LR, and three thousand rounds of .22 magnum. That was without counting the grenades. The grenades were a gift from Gabriel.  Where he got them from, and why he decided to give them to me, I haven’t the faintest idea. He brought them over about six weeks after work finished on my survival shelter. I had twenty high explosive fragmentation grenades, and an equal number of concussion grenades. Gabe explained to me how to use each type, and the different tactical scenarios they were best suited for, but I was reluctant to try them out. I had exactly zero experience using grenades, and didn’t want to blow myself up trying to learn a new skill. Good old ballistic firearms would do just fine, thank you very much.

After testing out as much of my weapons cache as I dared, I spent a couple of hours cleaning them. When all the weapons were clean and locked up, with the exception of the Sig 9mm and two spare mags, I went back in the house and turned on the TV.  By then the news media had figured out that the infected were not living people suffering from a virus that turned them into homicidal maniacs, but were something else entirely. CNN was the first outlet to report that the infected were actually walking corpses. I watched the report as it happened.

A field reporter and his crew were riding in a humvee toward the quarantine zone. The reporter was riding with a group of reinforcements from the Tennessee National Guard, and they were about ten minutes away from the army outpost closest to the fighting. The humvee suddenly screeched to a halt, and the reporter cut off mid-sentence. The driver got out and started running toward an approaching column of vehicles, followed by a few other men in army uniforms. The reporter and his crew followed as well.

Large plumes of smoke rose in the distance, and a long column of military vehicles were driving toward the news crew.  The crew caught up with the soldiers as a captain saluted and began speaking with the commanding officer of the retreating soldiers; a tall, stony faced colonel with a bloody bandage over his right eye.

“Sir, what’s going on? Are you with the unit from Dalton?” the Captain asked.

“Get your men turned around Captain, Dalton is overrun. Our orders are to retreat back up I-75 and establish a perimeter on Battlefield Parkway. We have to stop the infection from making its way into Tennessee.”

“But sir, I thought…”

“NOW Captain!” the Colonel shouted, pointing in the direction the Captain’s column came from. “Those damn things are right on our heels, we don’t have time to chit-chat! Get that goddamn column turned around!”

The Captain snapped to attention. “Yes sir!”

He saluted again, then ran back to his humvee. The reporter followed close by and put a microphone in his face.

“Captain Wilson, did I hear the Colonel correctly? Has the infection spread past Dalton? What happened to the people who live there?”

“I don’t know, you heard as much as I did.” He snapped.

The Captain motioned to one of his sergeants. “Get on the radio and let all the drivers know that we’re heading back north. I want this column turned around, and I want it turned around now.”

“Yes sir!” the sergeant snapped off a crisp salute and took off toward a large troop transport vehicle. The reporter kept trying to ask questions as the Captain and his driver got back in the humvee.

“I don’t have time to answer questions right now.” Captain Wilson said. “Just get in the truck. We’re leaving.”

Wilson picked up a radio and began speaking with someone from the unit retreating from Dalton. The news crew piled into the back of the humvee.  The reporter motioned to the rest of the crew for silence by holding a finger up to his lips with one hand and pointing at the Wilson’s radio with the other. The cameraman leaned forward trying to get the microphone on his camera closer to the conversation.

“…why are we retreating? I thought the infection was contained to the west. Over.”